Chairman's Welcome

Barbara Ostrov, M.D.Interim Chair

Welcome to the Pediatrics Residency Program at the Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital.

At the Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital, you will be the recipient of outstanding education and training in a community that recognizes us as their resource for healthy children as well as for children with acute and chronic illnesses. Our rural-suburban location is ideal for families; given the fact that we are the only academic Children's Hospital in a large geographic region, our programs provide primary and specialty care for children with a broad range of illnesses, unsurpassed by urban-based institutions.

We are also fortunate that central Pennsylvania provides tremendous community support for the Children's Hospital and its programs and services. This includes financial support, but it also includes real understanding that we are the provider for children in this region; this community is invested in our success. On a per capita basis, nationally, we are consistently one of the most successful beneficiaries of The Children's Miracle Network, and that support has allowed us to provide expanded equipment, services and programs for our young patients and their families. The Penn State Pan Hellenic Dance Marathon ("THON"), one of the largest undergraduate-student organizations in the country, raised more than $13 million dollars in 2015 to support clinical, educational and research programs in pediatric oncology at our hospital. Most significantly, it was the efforts of our community that resulted in the opening of our new hospital in February of 2013.

As the leader of our department and our hospital, I work hard to ensure that quality of care and patient safety are our highest priorities. To that end, we are active members of The Children's Hospitals' Association's Solutions for Patient Safety, a consortium of children's hospitals that is working together to systematically improve the quality and safety of hospitalized children throughout the US. The high quality of care in our hospital has also been recognized nationally in US News.

We have outstanding, well-trained faculty who consistently are recognized for their teaching and mentoring skills. We also have the honor of being the home to the only two academic medical center pediatricians to be named Pennsylvania AAP Pediatrician of the Year.

By training in central Pennsylvania, our residents have unique opportunities not afforded to those in many other programs. By virtue of working so close to Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, our residents and students have the opportunity to work on advocacy issues that face children and families every day. Our residents also have the important experience of caring for underserved populations in Harrisburg and at the Milton Hershey School, a large cost-free coeducational home and school for children from families of low income.

As the leader of our department, I have an open door to all our residents, students and faculty; please stop by and say hello if you come for a visit.